The Mass Effect Minority
- Thread starter GuiltBlade
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I think it is a question of balance. I LOVED Mass Effect. I LOVE Mass Effect 2. They are in a sense, very different games. I find that I miss the random wandering about planets. I hated the Mako, but it was fun to use to soften the baddies up, then just give 'em a good solid finish with hand weapons.
I find the lower levels to be satisfying, but even on hardcore, without really upping my skills I don't find the later levels to be more difficult. So I guess the progression doesn't do the fun thing of making you godlike. The clips bug me. I love the sniper rifle, but CONSTANTLY ran out of clips for it. And the stupid probes...goddamit...you couldn't just upgrade to a machine that built them custom? And why don't biotic adepts have barrier? Really?
That said, ME2 is just a satisfying game. The universe feels less empty, you feel like more a part of the world. That to me, is worth the money I spent on it. I mean, the star map...I have spent hours just looking at the map.
I find the lower levels to be satisfying, but even on hardcore, without really upping my skills I don't find the later levels to be more difficult. So I guess the progression doesn't do the fun thing of making you godlike. The clips bug me. I love the sniper rifle, but CONSTANTLY ran out of clips for it. And the stupid probes...goddamit...you couldn't just upgrade to a machine that built them custom? And why don't biotic adepts have barrier? Really?
That said, ME2 is just a satisfying game. The universe feels less empty, you feel like more a part of the world. That to me, is worth the money I spent on it. I mean, the star map...I have spent hours just looking at the map.
You know, I would have tolerated the changes made to gameplay and such even though I'm not a shooter fan. But it's that the changes to gameplay came at the expensive of a cohesive, emotionally-engaging story that really bugs me. The thing about the first Mass Effect, for all it's gameplay faults, it had a really great story. I found myself very confounded by some of the moral choices you're presented with, as the game had some great shades of grey. The characters were opinionated and varied, meaning you grew attached to them the longer you played. Then ME2 comes along and removes the complexity of the morality system, introduces characters who don't want to talk with you until over halfway through the game (at which point I no longer care), and features dialogue meant to appeal to 12 year old boys.
I'll be honest and say I'm one of those "games are art" hippies who'd rather play a frustrating game with a good story than a stylish shooter with no soul. Sadly, ME2 fell into the latter category for me. So much so I doubt I'll be picking up the third one (and I say this as a BioWare fangirl who's bought every title since the original Baldur's Gate). For me, the real deciding factor was the character of Shepard himself. While in the first game, he was left up to the player to define, here it seems the devs want him to have a pre-determined personality, as evidenced by the lack of variety in the dialogue system now. You know what, it's not a real RPG anymore. There's no way for me to meaningfully impact the story the way I'd like to, or the way I was able to in the first game. Very disappointing.
I'll be honest and say I'm one of those "games are art" hippies who'd rather play a frustrating game with a good story than a stylish shooter with no soul. Sadly, ME2 fell into the latter category for me. So much so I doubt I'll be picking up the third one (and I say this as a BioWare fangirl who's bought every title since the original Baldur's Gate). For me, the real deciding factor was the character of Shepard himself. While in the first game, he was left up to the player to define, here it seems the devs want him to have a pre-determined personality, as evidenced by the lack of variety in the dialogue system now. You know what, it's not a real RPG anymore. There's no way for me to meaningfully impact the story the way I'd like to, or the way I was able to in the first game. Very disappointing.
I tried to get through all 5 pages of this but the first page alone annoyed me. First response in people are talking about "bandwagon blinders" as if someone who likes Mass Effect 2 is incapable of making their own decisions on enjoying a game. Furthermore it annoys me that people seem to take "oh I dislike something popular" as being all edgy and trendy (which the OP did not do at least, which I applaud). To those who ironically jump on the bandwagon of dislike, I say you're not edgy or trendy at all. I would've thought the complete laughingstock that the L4D2 Boycott was revealed to be would have been enough to dissuade people from pretending that disliking something that happens to be popular does not suddenly make you the king of opinions.
It's perfectly fine to dislike something, but to dismiss the concerns of those who like it as being misinformed and blind to popularity is just insulting at best and stupid at worst. If you honestly think people should universally like or dislike something then you have been viewing the world in a flawed manner and that needs to be corrected.
I like Mass Effect 2 and I like it based on my own thoughts and nobody else's. If someone dares to challenge that then there will be no limit to the anger and vitriol I will throw in their direction for daring to challenge my personal judgement.
It's perfectly fine to dislike something, but to dismiss the concerns of those who like it as being misinformed and blind to popularity is just insulting at best and stupid at worst. If you honestly think people should universally like or dislike something then you have been viewing the world in a flawed manner and that needs to be corrected.
I like Mass Effect 2 and I like it based on my own thoughts and nobody else's. If someone dares to challenge that then there will be no limit to the anger and vitriol I will throw in their direction for daring to challenge my personal judgement.
To me the planet scanning is exponentially better than the Mako journeys. I loathed them. one of my few grievances is that I have to buy probes.quiet_samurai said:Agreed..... well almost. I hate planet scanning!! i'm rather curious why they even implemented that into the game. They should have based the upgrades on XP or credits or simply just doing side missions.Ghostwise said:I humbly disagree. I think they improved every aspect of the original game./flee!
You and me both mate.Fappy said:I miss squadmates bitching about how cold Noveria is toostukov961 said:
Yes please! Something like Morrigan teasing Alistair or Ogrhen hitting on, well, everyone.CmdrGoob said:
Wait so Just because a lot of people like it it means that liking it makes you a blind follower of a trend? Maybe lots of people like it 'cause it's good not because other people do.s69-5 said:
hmm...so they used similar styles to two of the most popular series in these last years, and you tell them thats a horrible idea? i love gears of war, for the cover system and third person, and halo is just some all around fun, and bioware is a godlike company as it is, and you obviously proved your in the minority, especially with how many people are/will buy this game, mass effect 1 was liked alot less compared to this one. so i dont see your logic there but your opinion. and personally ashley and tali were annoying as hell to me in the first game, so i loved the new characters in the 2nd one, tali was better in this one tho,garrus has always been a beast and i loved some of his comments in this game, he was nearly always in my party, same with legion once i aquired him, and i do agree having more weapons like in the first was good, but it wasn't nearly anything at all to bug me, im still killin the bad guys, and i LOVE LOVE LOVE the new sniping, good lord its so much better, and i like the thermal clips, it makes me concentrate better on actually being conservative and accurateGuiltBlade said:
story wise, this is the middle chunk of the series, therefore the ending will be no where near as epic as the first or third, thats how its always been in any game series following a plot, i think bioware did an excellent job to open up the universe tho, and to expand on how the universe has changed and i think the collectors were a great add in especially with the reapers, and it made perfect sense to me, and obviously to everyone at bioware and everyone else who bought this, so i dont get how you go calling it a bad story, the first game's ending was epic, yes, but the rest of it was kinda slow going
overall i had a way more thorough better experience in me2, anytime i played me1 it was just to get to the end for the awesomeness there, the whole second game i loved overall
someone also pointed out about shepherd's story, its his story, so it is meant to be linear, you are supposed to be the good guy, but you can be an aggressive badass or be the pure hero that you are in the fable's and stories, so i dont find it bad at all that they dont do super branch outs from it, i'd rather play someone's story that is epic
now go ahead and disagree and tell me why you think im wrong, im up for discussion, i just can't see why these are bad things, i think you are just being a bit to nostalgic about the little things and dont enjoy the overall wholeness of the game
I said this a couple of pages back, let's hope that BioWare are scanning the forums for input as they said they did after ME1 and take note. No party banter = fail!CmdrGoob said:
I also said that they should totally implement the DA type banter as it made you feel that the party members knew each other not just your character! *tuts, I don't know, nobody listens* ;-)
Yep, they dumbed it down for the ever increasing, twelve year old 360 masses. There's less skill trees, less weapons, much less armour and more shooty shooty kill kill and sex. The same thing happened to Splinter Cell: It went from a slow and methodical stealth game where planning your actions was key; to a Jason Bourne auto targeting murder fest where you only have to worry about slaughtering everyone in your way.
I think we should all be able to say "job well done" when they only fault most people can pick out is the planet scanning!quiet_samurai said:Agreed..... well almost. I hate planet scanning!! i'm rather curious why they even implemented that into the game. They should have based the upgrades on XP or credits or simply just doing side missions.Ghostwise said:I humbly disagree. I think they improved every aspect of the original game.
Totally disagree with the OP - loved every second, everything was an improvement. The planet scanning, whilst not great, was better than having to land on a planet then drive to a location on the map, pick up some minerals in one corner, go to the opposite corner, then return to the Normandy.
Pff...BaldursBananaSoap said:
How much footage have you actually watched?
Your issues with a completely unrelated series aside:BaldursBananaSoap said:
The skill trees haven't been reduced in complexity, You'll notice that each tree is exactly as linear as before, they've only been shortened. Most of the +stats accuracy and whatnot are gone, and good too, because they were pretty much necessary, but kinda boring.
For all the claims that the number of weapons has been reduced, the weapons of ME1 were pretty much different skins with the same stats, with a few percentages tweaked here and there, nothing truly gamechanging.
Same thing with the armours. Except sometimes you had to wear those strange pinkish things because they were the best ones.
The only things I miss, are the modifications, but that's mostly because they made the bullets prettier.
Also, it's really not necessary to insult everyone who opposes you. Ad hominems never work.
I am in agreement that Bioware did drop the ball with ME2. However, I did like the new characters and the storyline was decent but not what I have come to expect from Bioware. The assault weapons suck and I did come across the switching of the ammo type to be rather annoying. To fix that I put it to the heavy style damage instead of the squad. Planet Scans were annoying and the mako was alright. I enjoyed driving the thing around. Universal cooldown is a problem. Over all I will give ME2 a 3/5. It didn't live up to expectations.
Mass effec
A game borrowing from other games isn't a bad thing all the time. However, when a game already has a play style that people enjoy it doesn't need to borrow from other games. That goes even more so for the big game production companies that have had multiple games be successful.
Mass Effect had a great story arc and play style that was it's own. It didn't need to borrow things from Halo or Gears of War. Though I didn't see much Halo borrowing more Gears of War.gmaverick019 said:
A game borrowing from other games isn't a bad thing all the time. However, when a game already has a play style that people enjoy it doesn't need to borrow from other games. That goes even more so for the big game production companies that have had multiple games be successful.